Journalists have to carefully approach the line of friendliness with politicians and know that it all has an ultimate strategic purpose, Washington journalists said Wednesday morning at POLITICO’s Playbook Breakfast.

“I do think one of the big mistakes in journalism and in Washington is that people accrue their own self worth to the institution they’re working for and function they’re trying to play,” New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich told an audience of more than 200 people at the Newseum. “Journalists think: ‘I think Politician X being so nice to me and solicitous of me because they really like me and they think it’s special and they think they can be friends’… In fact, you realize it can be a real seduction game and you can lose your distance.”

Leibovich told panel moderator POLITICO’s Mike Allen the one political figure he became close to was the late Elizabeth Edwards, whom he connected with when Leibovich’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer around the same time as Edwards. Leibovich said as a result, he had to cancel an interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards but that Elizabeth called and, from that moment, was a “great friend.”

NBC Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O’Donnell said she doesn’t think she’s personal friends with anyone she covers and dodged a question about which politician on the Hill is friendliest.

“Politics will draw in people who have that tactile need,” O’Donnell said.

When asked what Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is like around reporters and no cameras, O’Donnell said he’s frank and direct.

“I think he likes interacting with reporters more than it may appear, and I think he’s willing to give us his perspective on how he’s working,” O’Donnell said. “I enjoy those moments because it does help you interpret his public activities.”

The conversation then turned to another long-term Capitol Hill figure: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He will likely run for another term, O’Donnell said, though Leibovich, who wrote a profile of McCain for Sunday’s issue of The New York Times Magazine, said it might largely depend on whether Republicans gain control of the Senate in 2014.

“I think a lot of it will depend on whether the Republicans win the Senate in November and then he would be Armed Services chairman and he wants that very badly,” Leibovich said.

O’Donnell said McCain thrives off of activity and “being in the game” and that “one of the lessons of McCain is you can have many acts.”

McCain’s mother is older than 100, so journalists figure McCain, 77, might still have a long way to go. CNN’s Jake Tapper noted that for McCain, retirement equals death as McCain’s father died soon after his own retirement.

“Retirement for him is mortality,” Tapper said.

The four journalists at the event were evenly split over which was harder to cover: the administration of President Barack Obama or that of George W. Bush. Tapper and Leibovich said Bush was more difficult to cover, while O’Donnell and New York Times Chief White House correspondent Peter Baker said Obama’s is tougher.

O’Donnell and Baker cited the recent efforts by the White House press corps to gain more access to the president while he is conducting official business, something they say has been significantly reduced as the White House utilizes more social media tools to disseminate photos by official White House photographer Pete Souza.

Baker said he believes the White House “gets” the journalists’ complaints and will respond.

“It’s the easiest thing in the world to be nice to the photographers,” Baker said. “The photographers aren’t there to try and screw them in any way. They’re just trying to get new pictures.”

Baker said he misses pool sprays when the press corps would be invited into the Oval Office during an event like a bill signing or meeting with congressional leaders and the corps would be able to get in a few question about the issue of a day.

“We don’t get that anymore. They want to control the message, they want to control everything and they think those things distract from the intended message of the day,” Baker said. “They’re right, I completely understand their logic but so many events go by and we don’t hear his opinion on that.”

All four journalists were in agreement that the media, in general, leans left. Tapper said it’s simplistic to call out conservative or liberal, but it is a question of experiences and lifestyle. Most reporters and editors in New York or Washington have never worked a minimum wage job, experienced poverty — and are not Evangelical Christians, Tapper said.

“There’s a lot of experience of the kinds of people who are reporters, editors, producers have not had,” Tapper said. “Now, that said, there is an awareness of that, and when there is an awareness of it,” the “best journalism can happen.”